"You know the great dread I had in marrying," he said to her one day, "was
lest I should make myself and you dependents, should some day sacrifice my
freedom to my fear of losing--happiness."
"Yes, and very foolish you were, not to have more confidence in yourself
and in me."
"Perhaps. But what I am thinking is that you have brought me luck. I am
free, beyond anybody's reach. I could quit the paper to-morrow and we
should hardly have to change our style of living even if I did not get
something else to do."
"Style of living--" in that phrase lay the key to the change that was
swiftly going on in Howard's mind and mental attitude. It is not easy for a
man with environment wholly in his favour to keep his point of view
correct, to keep his horizon wide and clear, his sense of proportion just.
It is next to impossible for him to do so when his environment opposes.
The man who looks out from misery and squalor upon misery and squalor is,
if he thinks at all, naturally an anarchist. To him the established order
shows only injustice and persistence of injustice. The man who looks out
from luxury and ease and well-being upon luxury and ease and well-being is
forced by the very limitations of the human mind to an over-reverence for
the established order.
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